Thursday, March 8, 2012

Yeah, I'm a little late to the game with that, but I like to think of this whole year as the Hugh Year so I'm gonna run with it! Here are a couple updates about Hugh.

Things are off to a good start and things are really ramping up. There's a lot of background work that goes into starting a small business, and I'm really fortunate that the Hatch Detroit prize comes with some important donated services.

The first place I stopped was at the offices of the intellectual property experts at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn where I met with Mike Lisi and Julie Kretzschmer. They were cool and down-to-earth and were very helpful in explaining the ins and out of trademark law to a neophyte. Plus Mike knew my old store Mezzanine from its Ann Arbor days and that always excites me.

For a little guy, spending the money to protect your ideas and your brand is usually low on the list of priorities (it was always a "wish list" item when I had Mezzanine) so it was pretty amazing to have a chance to talk to attorneys who are the best in the biz. It may seem overkill for an independent retail store to officially secure its brand (would anyone really steal it?) but I think Hugh is a super idea and I have big plans for it. So don't even think of copying it, I'm covered!

The other cool thing was my appearance in HOUR Detroit! My friend Alexa Stanard penned a great little profile of Hugh and Hatch Detroit and my tips for adopting classic bachelor style in 2012. HOUR is always so wonderful about covering cool things happening in the city and I was pretty excited to be featured. They are good people.

Now I'm not sure if the editors did this to protect the delicate sensitivities of HOUR readers or if they did it to protect me from overzealous parents who might not have appreciated the comparison, but I had a pretty good quote (I'm told) that was cut from the piece. Paragraph four should have read:

Although Hugh will aim squarely for the unencumbered male who knows how to make a mean Manhattan, Posch says everyone, even families, can enjoy the store’s well-designed home goods built to last.

“At Hugh we’re not super concerned with child-friendliness,” Posch says. “But, you know, babies fall down and drunks fall down. Some of those concerns are universal.”

Many thanks to Dante Stella for the photograph, and being available on short notice to help me out. He is Hugh's biggest booster. In case you are wondering, the photo was taken in my friend's studio at the Scarab Club and if I look a little bloated, it was the day after Thanksgiving, so I was. Normally I am thin like supermodel.

About

My name is Joe and I own Hugh, a design & lifestyle store in Detroit. This blog isn't specifically about the things I sell at the store as much as it's about the things that inspire it: things I think are cool, vintage discoveries and stories from almost 20 years of working with (mostly) mid-century modern design. Think of it as the Hugh backchannel.